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Enjoying life helps to keep you healthy

21 January 2014

People who enjoy life maintain better physical function in their daily activities and keep up faster walking speeds as they age, compared with people who enjoy life less, according to a new study led by Professor Andrew Steptoe (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health).

The research, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association
Journal), was based on data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). It followed 3,199 men and women aged 60+ in England over an eight year period in order to examine the link between positive well-being and
physical well-being.

Participants were
divided into three age categories: 60-69 years old, 70-79 and 80+. UCL researchers then assessed
the participants’ enjoyment of life on a 4-point scale in response to statements such as: “I enjoy the things that I do”, “I enjoy being in the company of
others”, "On balance, I look back on my life with a sense of happiness” and “I
feel full of energy these days”.

The researchers then gauged walking speed with a
gait test and conducted personal interviews to determine
whether participants were impaired in daily activities such as getting out of
bed, getting dressed, bathing and showering.

Older people who enjoy life are also at lower risk for developing problems with activities of daily living, and for showing declines in physical function. It appears that enjoyment of life contributes to a healthier and more active old age.

Professor Andrew Steptoe (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health)

“The study shows that older people who
are happier and enjoy life more show slower declines in physical function as
they age,” says lead author Professor Andrew Steptoe. “They are less likely to develop impairments in
daily activities such as dressing or getting in or out of bed, and
their walking speed declines at a slower rate than those who enjoy life less.”

Participants in the 60-69 year age
bracket had higher levels of well-being, as did people with higher socioeconomic
status, education and people who were married and working. Not surprisingly,
people with chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis,
stroke and depression had lower levels of enjoyment of life.

People with low well-being were more
than three times as likely as their positive counterparts to develop problems in
their daily physical activities.

“(However it) is not because the happier
people are in better health, or younger, or richer, or have more healthy
lifestyles at the outset," write the authors in the paper. "Even when we take these factors into account,
the relationship persists.”

"We have previously found that enjoyment of
life is a predictor of longer life; so older people who report greater
enjoyment are less likely to die over the next 5 to 8 years than those with
lower enjoyment of life," explains Professor Steptoe. "What this study showed was that older people who enjoy
life are also at lower risk for developing problems with activities of daily
living, and for showing declines in physical function. It appears that enjoyment of life contributes to healthier and more active old
age.

"The first thing we thought about is whether the reason for
this effect is that people who do not enjoy life are already sick or have
mobility problems, or perhaps they are depressed. When we measured these
factors and added them to our analyses, they were responsible for part of the
association between enjoyment of life and later function, but only part of it.
Lifestyle factors such as regular physical activity and smoking do not appear
to have been responsible either. So we suspect that there may be direct
links with biological processes in the body that influence physical function."